Brothers at the Bear Paw

There are three brothers in my family. Two of which celebrate birthdays in June and one in August. This year we planned a brothers only trip Southern Utah. The original inspiration was to make a run to the only In-N-Out Burger in Utah down near St. George in Washington, UT. Since the original purpose of the trip centered around food, it’s only fitting that the some of the highlights were, of course, the food.

It ended up being a one day trip. Drive down, sleep overnight, drive home. With lots of stops along the way both going down and coming home. For the one and only breakfast, the youngest brother had been raving for months about the Bear Paw Cafe in downtown St. George. And it was good. Everything you could hope in a breakfast place and which you can’t find anything like, unfortunately, where I live in Provo.

I was torn, as I often am, between something sweet along the lines of pancakes, waffles, sweet rolls, etc, and something not so sweet, like eggs benedict or an omelette. This time I went down the sweet hole and ordered their cinnamon apple stuffed french toast. It turned out to be a good choice. Cinnamon-y, apple-y, sugar-y apples sandwiched between a couple pieces of bread and then french toasted. The other brothers licked off their plates and downed their hot cocoas in an admirable fashion. It’s good that we got there a bit early in the morning. We still needed plenty of time for breakfast to digest before we headed to In-N-Out for lunch.

Carol’s Pastry Shop

Just last week I read about Carol’s in an article on the Best of Utah 2009 in City Weekly. Surprisingly, I had never even heard of the place. But having been there now I can see why it might have escaped my attention.

The article in City Weekly claimed they have the best eclairs in Utah, so I put it on my list of places to visit when I had the chance. Fortunately, just yesterday we had to take a trip to the doctors office up in this part of Salt Lake and that provided the perfect opportunity to stop and validate City Weekly’s claims.

Approaching this place from the street for the first time could leave people wondering if they have the right address. The street (Lincoln St, e.g. 945 East) is a residential street in one of Salt Lake’s older neighborhoods (with lots of great bungalow and craftsman style homes).

When you get to the right house number, all that is there is a house. Running along the north side though is an alley way and mounted on the fence is an unobtrusive sign that says “Carol’s in rear” with an arrow pointing down the alley.

With some trepidation we started down the alley, and discovered behind house what looks like someone’s carport. Except that as you can see in the photo, there is a van parked in the carport that says “Carol’s Pastry Shop” on the side. A dead giveaway that a bakery is near.

In this picture (sorry about the quality, all I had with me was my phone) back behind the van in the corner is the actual entrance to this place. At this point I was thinking either I’ve somehow ended at their wholesale location or if this is the entrance and they’ve managed to stay in business for the decades they have, there must be something good here.

Turns out this is the entrance. There is a good sized production bakery in this building with a small retail counter and a couple display cases in front.

Our visit was late in the day and when I asked for some eclairs the gentleman helping said they were out for the day. Oh so disappointed. But he followed that disappoint with this, “…unless you want the big ones.” It took me about 3 seconds to think, “eclairs = good; bigger = better.” And so I said, “I’ll take them.” All of them, I’m thinking, which turned out to be five. Turns out they had some small lemon ones left as well so I got four of those as well.

I feel bad, because as I was ordering two other guys walked in. One of them even asked if was taking the last of the eclairs. Sorry, didn’t mean to ruin your night. The eclairs were good. 1950s era bakery doing old-fashioned style eclairs. Vastly different that the one I had Bouchon Bakery in Yountville several years ago, or from the Bakeri and Eis shop up at Zermatt Resort in Midway, but for what it was, very good. I had another one today, making it a day old. I think there were even better at the end of day two.

I’d like to go back sometime and get there earlier in the day to see what they have and try some of the other things they sell besides eclairs.

Carol’s Cake and Pastry Shop
1991 Lincoln Street
Salt Lake City, UT

Best Eclairs in Utah?

City Weekly’s gave this the Best Eclairs designation in their 2009 Best of Utah. Since I have a daughter who loves eclairs, putting this one in the queue to try when the time is right and I’m in the neighborhood.

From City Weekly…

Carol’s Cakes

Carol, Schmarol … this hidden-away place in Sugar House is operated by Al, Bob and Jeff Walkenhorst–three guys who know their eclairs. And anyone who’s tried baking them know there is an art to whipping up the perfect pte choux, the pastry shell that has to be baked hot and high so it doesn’t deflate and leave no room for that heavenly filling. So Bob and Jeff have learned a thing or two over the years (the bakery has been around for decades). It’s obvious from looking at all their offerings, they’re perfectionists. But those dang eclairs–they’re impossible to resist.

1991 S. Lincoln St., Salt Lake City, 801-484-3442

Macrina Bakery, Seattle, WA

Macrina Bakery, Seattle, WA
Originally uploaded by ninetreats

On a recent trip to Seattle I did some research ahead of time and came up with a couple bakeries that I wanted to visit while I was there on business. Fortunately they were both within walking distance of the hotel where I stayed, so each morning I woke up early enough to walk through Seattle and stop by one of the bakeries before I had to head off to meetings for the rest of the day.

Macrina Bakery has made the requisite appearances on the Food Network and has a cook book that you can buy.

The morning I stopped I had enough time to sit down and eat several of the goods at the store. It’s always going to be better fresh and sitting down, rather than eating on the run from a bag or later in the day. But I was not that impressed with the things from the bakery. The hot chocolate was weak – watery weak, not just less sweet weak (which can have it’s place). The croissant-based pastries had good flavor, but both were under proofed and under baked. Nice and crisp on the outside and verging on uncooked as you moved towards the middle.

I also brought a couple things home to my family, and though they were a day old by the time we ate them, I don’t think they would’ve been that much better when fresh.

Having worked in a bakery myself, I know consistently producing good things is not easy so I if I can I will give Macrina another shot, but this first time through left a lot of room for improvement.

Macrina Bakery
2408 1st Avenue
Seattle, WA, 98121

Crumb Brothers Bakery

For the two years that I lived in the Bay Area I always tried to keep a good loaf of bread on hand. Not what you find in your typical grocery store with words like Wonder or Old Home or even Grandma Sycamore’s (a local Utah favorite) in the title. No. The bread I always tried to have in stock was often called artisan or european or crusty or rustic. Bread that was made simply and tasted good. A bread that took a little work to eat. There is nothing like a slighty crunchy, very chewy crust encasing a creamy crumb that is cool to the touch.

Most often made that morning, and sometimes, still even warm. And the ingredient list was always short and simple. Flour, water, salt, some kind of yeast – either a small amount of commercially produced or from a sourdough starter. Those are the basics. All you really need to make bread. My favorite of all the Bay Area breads is the Sweet (or Sour) Batard from Acme Bakery. They craft some of the best breads I have ever eaten.

Unfortunately, bread like that is difficult if not impossible to find where I now live. But, this week I was in Salt Lake City running some errands and stopped at the Wild Oats Market in Sugarhouse. While browsing through the bakery I found several loaves that looked conspicuoulsy out of place in the land of large-soft-airy breads made with lots of scary ingredients. They were all from a bakery called Crumb Brothers Bakery which is located in Logan, an hour or so north of Salt Lake. I selected a loaf of their Ciabatta for the test and immediately started for home so I could try it.

It measured up on all accounts. The ingredients list was short. Flour, water, yeast and salt. The crust was chewy and required some effort to tear apart and bite through and the flavor of the bread was pure. I was so happy while I was eating the first piece, that I found their phone number on the package and called to see if they distributed anywhere closer to my house down in Provo. Unfortunately the answer was no. But I have two actions to attack in the next week or two. One, visit the Wild Oats that is a little closer to see if they stock it; and two, make a pilgrimmage to the source in Logan and see what else they make. I can’t wait.